Motion picture production is becoming increasingly complex, and such is even more true of motion pictures involving significant numbers of computer-generated objects and characters. Generally a number of CG assets are constructed by artists and modelers and the same are employed by the visual effects team for various scenes. Lighting is added, and the scene is composited and rendered to create a final shot, i.e., sequential set of frames representing a scene.
In smaller productions assets to be rendered may all be known in advance, and rendering may proceed in an essentially custom fashion for each shot. As productions became more complex, it becomes prohibitively expensive to configure on a custom basis all assets that would be referenced in a render in advance. Accordingly, versioning and publishing systems and methods were developed.
FIG. 1 illustrates a prior art versioning and publishing system 10. The system 10 is of a type similar to that described in U.S. Pat. No. 6,947,958, entitled “SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR DOCUMENTING COMPOSITE DATA PRODUCTS”, filed Sep. 19, 2001, and issued Sep. 20, 2005, owned by the assignee of the present application and incorporated by reference herein in its entirety. Such systems and methods keep track of assets in a rendered scene, e.g., images, models, or the like. They document the contents of each of a number of composite media products in order to be able to determine the version of each media product or asset used to create the composite media product.
An API may be associated with the versioning and publishing system, allowing an artist to request a particular version or representation of an asset. For example, in one implementation, an artist may construct a SPREF which can refer to a particular version of an asset; the same is used in lieu of a path and filename. Version indicators or tags may indicate a particular version number or may provide an indicator such as “current”, “approved”, “published”, or the like. In FIG. 1, an exemplary SPREF is illustrated for “character 1”, and various versions shown, e.g., version 3 and a version “approved by director”. The SPREF may then get resolved and a desired asset obtained. If the desired asset is updated to a new version, the SPREF may get linked to the new version. The SPREF itself will stay the same, but will point to the updated file. Versioning and publishing systems such as these allow a convenient way for assets to be catalogued and passed back and forth between artists.
While the ability to know the version of each media product or asset used to create a composite media product is highly useful, such does not allow the automatic retrieval of assets used in a prior shot. For example, it is common that a director may prefer the look of a prior shot over the look of a current shot. However, if assets have evolved in their appearance, e.g., been modified, since the time of the prior shot, there is no convenient way to go back to the prior shot.
This Background is provided to introduce a brief context for the Summary and Detailed Description that follow. This Background is not intended to be an aid in determining the scope of the claimed subject matter nor be viewed as limiting the claimed subject matter to implementations that solve any or all of the disadvantages or problems presented above.